The Beast with a Billion Backs
The Beast with a Billion Backs is the second of the four planned Futurama straight-to-DVD films, and was released on June 24, 2008 followed by a UK release on June 30, 2008 and an Australian release on August 6, 2008.4 It has been confirmed by David X. Cohen on the audio commentary that the title refers to the phrase for sexual intercourse "the beast with two backs" which originated in English in Shakespeare's Othello. Comedy Central aired the movie as a "four-part epic" on October 19, 2008.5 The movie has been nominated for an Annie Award, under the "Best Animated Home Entertainment Production" category. Guest voices include David Cross, Britany Murphy, Professor Stephen Hawking and Dan Castellaneta reprising his role as The Robot Devil. Summary The film takes place a month after the events of Bender's Big Score. Because of the number of time paradoxes that Bender has caused, the gateway to another universe inhabited by a planet-sized tentacled alien named Yivo with romantic intentions releases its tentacles to attach to everyone in the world. Soon, Yivo proposes, and the population of the world goes to live on Yivo, leaving Earth to the robots. Synopsis After a month of inactivity following the universe being ripped open in Futurama: Bender's Big Score, people decide to go on with their lives. Amy and Kif get married, and Fry starts a new relationship with a girl named Colleen; this upsets Bender, since Fry is spending more time with Colleen than with him. He decides to move in with her despite his discovery that she has four additional boyfriends living with her. After his hectic first evening at Colleen's apartment where she reveals she is going on a date with a 6th boyfriend, Fry is unable to accept that she cannot settle for one man and breaks up with her. At a scientific conference, Professor Farnsworth proposes an expedition to investigate the tear/anomaly, and beats his archrival Wernstrom in a game of Deathball (a gigantic version of Labyrinth), winning the right to mount it. When Bender is sent to explore the anomaly (like a tool, much to his dismay), his touch causes the anomaly to emit a shockwave which sends the entire ship flying. Farnsworth and Wernstrom discover that only living beings can pass through the anomaly unaffected; electrical objects such as robots are either repelled or destroyed. The two team up to try and initiate another expedition, but their idea is rejected in favor of a military assault on the anomaly led by Zapp Brannigan. Meanwhile, both Fry and Bender begin to feel alone, unwanted, and miserable. Fry, in his despair, sneaks aboard Zapp's ship just before it takes off so that he can find solace on the other side of the anomaly; Bender, on the other hand, is approached by the fabled League of Robots, a secret society of robots who like to blather about and tease humans, led by his hero Calculon. Bender quickly becomes a very prestigious member due to his perceived hatred of humans and "applying the law with no regard for its intent", although Calculon suspects that he is not as hard-hearted towards humans as he leads them to believe. However, Bender is very much dismayed when he learns that the League has no intention of killing all humans. As Fry enters the anomaly, Zapp's plan of attack using a weapon called a Universe to Universe Missile or UUM goes awry, and Kif is accidentally killed (by Zapp) in the process, much to Amy's grief. While drifting through space on the other side, which contains another universe, Fry comes across a colossal, one-eyed, tentacled creature, which begins forcing its appendages through the anomaly (Nixon states that King Kong is to old to save them this time). The tentacles begin to attack everyone in the universe, and nothing, not even diamondillium or diamondium can stop them since they are made of electro-matter that can only be harmed by other electro-matter, rendering the tentacles completely invulnerable. Fry returns to Earth with a tentacle attached to the back of his neck and tells everyone to "love the tentacle." The tentacles begin to attach themselves to everyone, causing their victims to fall in love with it. With the monster's influence spreading quickly, Fry becomes the pope of a new religion established to worship the tentacles. The Planet Express crew take shelter in their office building but the Professor eventually gets stuck with one, resulting Leela and Amy going on the run, along with Zapp. Bender, meanwhile, believes that the League of Robots should uphold a strict no-humans policy as he feels so insignificant around them. However, when he assists his friends in eluding the tentacles, he is caught red-handed by the other members. When Calculon calls his bluff about hating humans, he challenges Calculon to a duel using weapons called Planetary Annihilators in which he cheats, damaging Calculon's arm and destroying part of their headquarters. Calculon is outraged by his behavior but, instead of kicking the indifferent Bender out of the League as initially implied, he resigns from the League himself and names Bender its new leader. After Zapp and Amy sleep with each other and got stuck with tentacles, Leela ends up the last living person in the universe unattached to a tentacle. She examines a fragment of tentacle that snapped off trying to catch her and discovers that the tentacles are actually reproductive organs (known as Genticles), revealing this to everyone at a universal religious gathering. The creature, named "Yivo", admits that mating with everyone in the universe was its original intention, but explains that it is now truly in love with them. As a sign of good faith, Yivo resurrects Kif, who is displeased to learn that Zapp had tricked the then-grieving Amy into sleeping with him. Yivo asks to begin the relationship anew and removes its tentacles from everyone. Yivo takes everyone in the universe out on a date at the same time, which goes extremely well. However, the universe's leaders feel that Yivo has made no commitment and sends a delegation to break up with it. Before they can do so, however, Yivo proposes marriage and they accept. During this time, Bender is fed up with being neglected by Fry and makes a deal with the Robot Devil to gain and organize an army of robots from Robot Hell in order to take over the world and rebuild his human-hating reputation in the League. However, before Bender can attack, humanity leaves willingly to live on Yivo, along with the other civilizations of the universe, moving onto Yivo's body via golden escalators. This leaves Bender lonely once more and stagnates the robot population, who are built to serve humans. As the robots inherit Earth, everyone else is made to promise never to make contact with other universes. Fry, however, cannot help writing a letter to Bender back on Earth, which is sent without Yivo knowing. Leela does not trust Yivo's motives at first, but when she sees that everyone is happy with it, she eventually succumbs to her own loneliness and comes to accept Yivo. Bender receives Fry's letter, which is made out of electro-matter, and decides to set out and "rescue" his friend from his relationship with Yivo. He and his army harpoon Yivo from beyond the anomaly and drag it into their own universe where they are able to attack it. Fry convinces Bender to spare Yivo, but Yivo discovers that the robots' weapons are lined with the electro-matter from Fry's letter, allowing them to harm it. Since Fry broke his promise to never make contact with any other universes, Yivo breaks up with the universe. While everyone else leaves aboard Bender's ship, Yivo finds consolation with Colleen, making Fry feel betrayed, and they begin a single relationship as they head back to the other universe together and close the anomaly forever. Everyone laments that they will never know happiness or love with Yivo again; Fry decides to find love elsewhere and tries to ask Leela out, but she rejects him since he had already stopped trying once he met Colleen; Kif and Amy's relationship is strained due to Amy's affair with Zapp, whom Kif punches in the gut for rubbing it in; and Farnsworth and Wernstrom go back to being archrivals. Bender breaks up his friends' quarrel and assures them that what they experienced was not love, as love is a jealous, hard-to-get emotion that does not share itself with the world. Bender shares his own love with Fry and Leela by giving them a big hug which, in turn, actually strangles them. Cast *Billy West as Philip J. Fry, Dr. Zoidberg, Professor Farnsworth, Zapp Brannigan, Earth President Richard Nixon, Additional Voices *Katey Sagal as Turanga Leela *John DiMaggio as Bender, Additional Voices *Tress MacNeille as Linda, Additional Voices *Maurice LaMarche as Lt. Kif Kroker, Additional Voices *Phil LaMarr as Hermes Conrad, Additional Voices *Lauren Tom as Amy Wong, Additional Voices *David Herman as Professor Ogden Wernstrom, Giant Ant, Additional Voices *Brittany Murphy as Colleen *David Cross as Yivo *Stephen Hawking as Himself *Dan Castellaneta as The Robot Devil Category:Movies